Thread: Your Favorite Literary Character?

Hmmm... characters that have absolutely stuck with me... vividly... would surely include:

The narrator, Tristram Shandy, his father, Walter Shandy, Uncle Toby and the manservant, Obadiah from Lawrence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Don Quixote and Sanch Panza from Cervantes' Don Quixote

Dante from Dante's Divine Comedy (The character of Dante as painted in the Comedia is so complex and marvelous that many completely miss the fact that he is as much a literary invention by the poet as any clearly fictional character.

The narrator (Byron himself?) of Byron's Don Juan, whose great digressions are often far more interesting than the central narrative.

Goethe's Werther, from The Sorrows of Young Werther

Shakespeare? Where do you start? MacBeth and Lady Macbeth, Iago, Falstaff, Edmund, Hamlet, Puck.....

Captain Ahab from Melville's Moby Dick

Humbert Humbert from Nabokov's Lolita

Old Qfwfq from Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics. Absolutely one of the greatest narrators in literature.

Judge Holden from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian: A villain worthy of Shakespeare's Edmund, Iago, and Lady MacBeth and the Biblical Satan (as well as Milton's Satan)

Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Job, etc... from the Bible

Satan from Milton's Paradise Lost

Jean Valjean from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables

Milady de Winter, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis as well as D'Artagnan from Dumas' Three Musketeers

Huckleberry Finn and Jim from Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

Myra (Myron) Breckenridge from Gore Vidal's Myra Breckenridge


These are among the characters who have truly stuck with me from my reading... sometimes for years.

Originally Posted by ComposerOfAvantGarde

Artemis Fowl was terrific ONCE. Too easy to read now. And he's arrogant and very unlikeable anyway.

whitey whitey white

Originally Posted by MaestroViolinist

whitey whitey white

Go read some Shakespeare.

Originally Posted by Meaghan

TWELFTH NIGHT FTW.

From the same play - Viola (/Cesario). She's not my all-time favorite literary character (I don't think I could pick one), but I've got a lot of affection for her. In the simplest interpretation, she's selfless (for wooing Olivia on Orsino's behalf when she herself is in love with Orsino), brave (for picking up and carrying on after shipwreck and the supposed loss of her brother, and adapting without hesitation to a strange new world), and very witty. But on closer inspection, you can read her so many ways, which makes her fascinating. Especially as regards her proxy courtship of Olivia, which, while masterful, doesn't always seem particularly well-designed to turn Olivia's affections toward Orsino. Then you start getting into all sorts of speculation about Shakespeare's literary intentions that can never really be settled, but that's kind of fun sometimes. And it's interesting how other characters sort of project their own desires onto Viola/Cesario, seeing her as whatever they happen to want. It's hilarious how many (sometimes rather obvious) hints she drops about her true identity that people never pick up on because they want her to be Cesario - "I am not that I play," "I am almost sick for [a beard], but I would not have it grow on my chin," "I am all the daughters of my father's house, and all the brothers too," and, of course, "My father had a daughter loved a man, as it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship."

I LOVE TWELFTH NIGHT!!! It is a great play indeed! Favourite part: Malvolio reading the letter from "Olivia" I fell in love with that play when I was ten...

Originally Posted by ComposerOfAvantGarde

Go read some Shakespeare.

I HAVE!!! A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Originally Posted by MaestroViolinist

I HAVE!!! A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Okay, who am I:

Full of vexation come I with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia

(they were the second and third lines I had to say when I played the character in question)

Goes on,

Stand forth Demetrius, my noble lord
This man hath my consent to marry her

Wow it's been a long time. I've forgotten most of my words!

Originally Posted by ComposerOfAvantGarde

Wow it's been a long time. I've forgotten most of my words!

You expect me to remember that? It was like 6 months ago, and Shakespeare is hard to read.

Originally Posted by MaestroViolinist

You expect me to remember that? It was like 6 months ago, and Shakespeare is hard to read.

Oh come on. I had to memorise a monologue among other things when I was 12. It's not that hard to read once you get the hang of it. Start on Shakespeare when you're young so when you have to study it in after years you be an expert at evaluating his poetic language.

Originally Posted by ComposerOfAvantGarde

Oh come on. I had to memorise a monologue among other things when I was 12. It's not that hard to read once you get the hang of it. Start on Shakespeare when you're young so when you have to study it in after years you be an expert at evaluating his poetic language.

Smarty pants.

Anselmo from For Whom the Bell Tolls

Originally Posted by MaestroViolinist

Smarty pants.

You call me smarty pants?

i like you

Originally Posted by ComposerOfAvantGarde

You call me smarty pants?

i like you

That wasn't supposed to be a compliment, (the smarty pants bit).

Originally Posted by MaestroViolinist

That wasn't supposed to be a compliment, (the smarty pants bit).

I took it as an insult.